Live at the Witch Trials

Production

The album was recorded at Camden Sound Suite on 15 December 1978 and mixed by producer Bob Sargeant on the 16th. The group had been booked into the studio for a week but Mark E. Smith had fallen ill, and cancelled the first three days. Some songs date from earlier incarnations of the group and feature writing credit from former members Tony Friel and Una Baines.

Release

Live at the Witch Trials was released on 16 March 1979, through record label Step-Forward. The US release of the album came in alternate artwork and removed "Mother-Sister!" and "Industrial Estate", replacing them with "Various Times", the B-side of the group's second single, "It's the New Thing". All subsequent editions have followed the original UK track listing.

No singles were taken from the album, a practice that would be commonplace for the group until 1986. Some songs dated from earlier incarnations of the group with both Tony Friel and Una Baines featuring on the writing credits. By the time the album was released, drummer Karl Burns had left the band and guitarist Martin Bramah also quit shortly afterwards to form Blue Orchids, leaving Mark E. Smith as the sole remaining founder member.

The album was available in its original form until the late 1980s, being reissued on vinyl, cassette and CD by I.R.S. Records in 1989. In 1997, Mark E. Smith's own Cog Sinister label issued a CD edition that was poorly mastered from a below-standard vinyl copy. However, in conjunction with Voiceprint, Cog Sinister reissued the album again in 2002 as Live at the Witch Trials +, claiming to be remastered but was, in fact, simply a clone of the I.R.S. disc, and adding the tracks from the group's first two singles, "Bingo Master's Breakout" and "It's the New Thing". In 2004, Castle Music released a two-disc CD "Expanded Deluxe Edition" of the album, mastered from the original tapes and with a vastly expanded track listing. However, the Castle Music reissue used a vinyl source for the three "Bingo Masters Break Out" EP tracks, the original tapes having been lost.

Reception

The album was given a generally positive reception from critics upon its release, with Record Mirror in particular giving it a full five stars and describing the album as "a rugged, concerned, attuned, rebellious jukebox". Melody Maker was less impressed, being especially negative about the group's then-rhythm section of Marc Riley and Karl Burns.

In their retrospective review, Tiny Mix Tapes called it a "fully-formed, instant-classic debut album".

Personnel

That voice calling out the time on "Music Scene" ("six minutes!", "six forty!") was the group's driver - the son of the actor Peter Adamson who played Len Fairclough in Coronation Street.